Domestic Hazards
by fourleggedfish
Summary: This will be a series of shorts on the hazards of cohabitation. Friendship only, but it is definitely slashy all over the place by chapter 2. SPOILERS for all of season 6.
1. The Clear Shower Curtain

**Title: Domestic Hazards****: The Clear Shower Curtain  
****Author:** FourLeggedFish  
**Fandom: **House MD  
**Pairing:** House/Wilson, friendship only. Could be pre-slash if you're so inclined.  
**Wordcount:** ~1400  
**Rating: **PG-13  
**Disclaimer:** I collected thirty-thousand cereal box tops, but they wouldn't let me redeem them for House MD. Now I have Cheerios coming out of my ears.

**Summary:** Why it's a bad idea for two cohabitating bachelors to have a clear shower curtain. (According to a scene in ep 6:09, House and Wilson have a clear shower curtain in their bathroom. This is why clear is a bad idea.) Friendship only, but could be pre-slash if you're so inclined. Spoilers for episode 6:09.

**Comments are like House and Wilson snogging on the actual TV show; I need these things in order to survive. **  
**Dedication: **To **lostwiginity** for planting the idea in a comment on the House_Wilson comm on LJ, and to **theunknownsoul** for her hilarious screencaps of episode 6:09, which spawned the comment in the first place. This probably isn't the fic you were hoping for, since it's grievously lacking in smut, but it's what the muse poured into my skull with her spoon-straw. :) I hope you like it!

* * *

"Wilson?"

Wilson froze under the spray, then swiped shampoo out of his eyes and tried to squint through the clear plastic curtain to the door. They usually left it open when they showered because the bathroom didn't have any sort of ventilation fan (the building was too old), and Wilson didn't want mold to start growing all over the corners of the ceiling from the trapped moisture. But even House respected that boundary – they stayed away from the bathroom when the other was showering. "Um. Busy in here?"

"I have to pee."

Wilson blinked and brushed a dollop of bubbles off his cheek. "What, now? You have to pee _now_? House, I'm in the shower!"

Nothing for a few seconds, and then House's voice drifted around the door jamb again from where he must have been hiding in the hall; Wilson couldn't see all that well between the soap, the curtain, and the steam. "It's an emergency." He really did sound upset by this.

Wilson scoffed anyway and threw his hands up even though no one was in there to appreciate his exasperation. "House, you're fifty years old. I know you've learned how to hold it."

A nice, loud, obnoxious sigh coursed through the air. "Look, as much as the thought of screwing with you pleases me, this is not my idea of a fun practical joke. I swear I won't look, okay?"

"How does someone your age even get to the point of – of pee emergency anyway?" Wilson demanded. He should have just shut up and finished; at this rate, he could be done showering before House was done arguing, and the whole point would be moot. But their relationship was not conducive to a cessation of imagined hostilities. "Haven't you ever heard of the two hour rule?"

"That was three hours ago."

Wilson sputtered as much from the water streaming into his mouth as the disbelief. "Then why didn't you pee three hours ago?!"

"Wilson, come on!" From his tone, Wilson could well imagine him prancing out there, cane included, like a gimpy toddler. (Wilson imagined Tiny Tim, and then guffawed on the inside.) Then abruptly, House yelled, "Fine! I didn't want to get up because my leg was cramping, so I thought I'd wait it out, but that took longer than I expected and I can't wait any longer. Wilson, this is the overnight bladder talking here! I have to go."

"Oh, for… Fine." Wilson turned toward the wall and went back to washing, his lathers angry and put-upon and strangely self-conscious now, which at least made for a good froth all over his loofa. When he heard House hesitantly step into the doorway, Wilson snapped, "No peeking!"

"You're not my type," House replied.

The toilet lid squeaked as it went up and Wilson concentrated on his armpits. Loofa-loofa, scrub-a-dub. "I said no peeking."

"I'm not peeking." Petulant, that.

Wilson glanced past his upraised arm and briefly met another set of furtive eyes. "You are too peeking!"

"So are you!" House spun back to his own business, angling himself to block Wilson's view. His balance seemed rather precarious from where Wilson was standing. Then House swore over himself.

"Don't even try it, House. I know you're not shy."

"I can't go."

"What exactly are you trying to prove?" Wilson glanced through the curtain again for good measure, the image of House slightly smeared by imperfect plastic. "That you're an exhibitionist? That I'm _not_ a voyeur?"

"Stop looking!"

Wilson paused in his watching to hook the edge of the curtain with one finger. He pulled it out of the way, hooking it under his chin, blinking streams of water from his eyes. "You're actually upset. House, we pee next to each other all the time."

House threw his head back to groan at the ceiling, and then fumbled to put himself back together. Without peeing.

"House – "

"You can finish your damn shower in peace," House snarled, and then he hobbled out with sharp, angry footsteps. If his leg had been cramping up this morning, he would only make it worse again, walking like that. On his way out, Wilson thought he heard House grumble something about that having been a bad idea anyway, not like they were married, and Wilson has potted plants for emergencies like that.

"Don't pee in my plants! House!" Wilson fumbled to get at the shower controls; he was nearly done anyway. As he turned off the water, he kept shouting after House. "This is not like your apartment – you can't use every semi-convenient container like a litter box. House! You can have the bathroom, okay? I'm getting out."

Nothing; it was like House disappeared.

Wilson wrapped a towel around his hips with hasty motions, still dripping all over the mat, and then stumbled out into the hall. Cold apartment air blasted his exposed chest and legs, sending a shiver to course through him. He found House in the kitchen, pulling out cereal. Planting his hands on his hips, Wilson demanded, "What the hell was that all about?"

House hunched over his bowl and made way too much out of pouring cereal, as if he were scrying for the meaning of life in the slow cascade of Fruity Pebbles.

"House? What, are you sick? Look, it's probably an infection; that would increase the urgency to – "

"We're not talking about this. Ever again." House tapped out a few more cereal flakes and then concentrated on folding the cereal bag back down into the box.

Wilson stared at House's tense back, but he also spared an eye to make sure that House used the clip to clip the cereal bag closed and preserve freshness, plus reduce the attraction for rodents and insects. "Okay," Wilson started, his voice low and stern; House was not getting out of this. "What's going on?"

House slammed the cereal box back down on the counter, then thumped his other fist against the formica as well, leaning forward on both hands, his head hung low between his shoulders. Then he mumbled something incoherent, every intonation screaming of mortification.

Wilson furrowed his brow and took a step closer. "What?"

"I said I got an erection!" House cringed to have that come out so loud, and then he ducked over his cereal to push Fruity Pebbles around the bowl with his finger.

Wilson balked. "Oh. Oh! Okay." Yeah, can't pee with an erection; it just doesn't work. Then Wilson twitched nonspecifically. He twiddled his hands out in front of himself and then wished that he had thought to put on more than a towel before rushing out here like a half-naked loon. "Why didn't you take care of it in your bedroom? Before you barged in on me in the shower?"

"I did!" House snapped, and then he folded inward again to keep poking at his cereal. From the muted crunching, Wilson guessed that he was mashing it into a fine powder. While Wilson studied the set of his shoulders, House mumbled, "Thought I did." Then he grew more animated and affirmed, "It doesn't mean anything. It was a fluke, and we're never bringing it up again."

"Wait, wait, wait." Wilson let out a nervous breath of laughter that ended up sounding like a tiny bellows with a hole in it. "It was me? You got an erection from looking at me?!"

"I just said no talking!" House replied, irate and twitchy, and if he didn't stop poking at his cereal, he would soon reach a point where he'd be able to snort it. "And no. It wasn't you." House tried to laugh to illustrate how ridiculous that thought was. Boy, did it fall flat. And the flush creeping up to stain his neck from shoulders to hairline didn't help either.

Wilson didn't even pretend he might buy that. Instead, he approached the cutting table and watched the muscles in House's back twitch as he clenched up. A shade short of disbelieving, Wilson gently asked, "House, are you attracted to me?"

"No." But the single drawn-out word carried a distinct edge of wariness, until it sounded thin like a reluctant whine. A child forced by its parents to apologize.

Wilson wasn't sure what to make of that, so he fell back on the good old firm affirmation of his heterosexuality. "You know I'm not like that, right?"

"Oh. My. _Gawd_." House grasped the edges of the counter and glared up at the cupboards. "I said it was nothing. A fluke. Will you stop already?"

What kind of idiot would Wilson have to be to keep pursuing this pointless line of inquiry? House said it was a freak accident of anatomy, Wilson wanted that to be true, so… Why did he feel sad, all of a sudden? "Yeah," he replied. "Sorry. Just took me by surprise."

House gave a curt nod and a gruff, "Good." After a pause, he added, "You're getting the floor wet. Canes and puddles don't exactly mix."

"Right." Wilson pivoted away, glanced back, stuttered on his feet, and then left the kitchen. There was no point in discussing a fluke anyway.

~fin~

(I might post a sequel...don't know....)

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	2. The Late Night Dilemma

**Title: Domestic Hazards: The Late Night Dilemma  
Author:** FourLeggedFish  
**Fandom: **House MD  
**Pairing:** House/Wilson, friendship only. Could be pre-slash if you're so inclined.  
**Wordcount:** ~2700  
**Rating: **Hard R - sexual situations  
**Disclaimer:** I collected thirty-thousand cereal box tops, but they wouldn't let me redeem them for House MD. Now I have Cheerios coming out of my ears.  
**Summary:** House brings home a diversion  
**Comments are like House and Wilson snogging on the actual TV show; I need these things in order to survive. **  
**A/N: **I've decided to write a series of short-ish vignettes about the issues that naturally arise when two grown, independent adult males share living space as friends after having spent the better part of their lives not having to worry about the unspoken rules and obstacles of cohabitation. :D More so when those two men are House and Wilson. I have no real plot in mind, and no aims to really create one, but knowing me, a plot could emerge at any time. So...I hope you enjoy!  
**A/N 2: **And if anybody has a suggestion on an unusual issue that might come up, please let me know! Like a fight over who's responsible for which groceries, and who should buy new toilet paper, and even though they live together, is it really appropriate for House (or Wilson) to borrow this/that/the other thing without asking...etc. Go nuts! Whatever you'd like to see - slashy, but not necessarily _slash_.

* * *

Several months after part 1, in the loft they bought together, in an ambiguous post "The Down Low" timeline...

* * *

Wilson was trying to sleep. He amended that to desperately trying, not that it helped with the aforementioned sleep part. The worry kept him awake, eyes open, blinking at the wall opposite his bed. He had already caught Amber up on his day, stupid as House thought that habit was. Usually, it calmed him enough to pass out. Wilson was accustomed to rehashing the painfully mundane highlights of his day with a doting female figure, someone who didn't care that he droned on about the boring exploits of hospital administration and budget meetings and conversations with patients. Someone who didn't care if he made a comment on what he had eaten for lunch, or the fact that the sun had been angling into his office all day in a particularly blinding and irritating manner. It soothed him to talk, and in his mind, it soothed his partner just to hear his voice, no matter what he actually said. And it was a hard habit to break. It wasn't like he could do that with House; he'd get punched in the face for being a boring troll, and anyway, since they worked next door to each other, there was no point in telling House things that House already knew. That, and what Wilson usually talked about tended to concern House himself. They were annoyingly close to each other. Maybe that was why they managed to get on each other's nerves so often, with so little provocation, and why it didn't matter to the friendship that they did so.

House hadn't come home yet; that was the anomaly teasing around Wilson's brain, torturing him with a buzzed brand of giddy wakefulness. It was after one in the morning and House wasn't home even though he had left the hospital at five, an hour before Wilson. In as much as House was a grown man and perfectly capable of taking care of himself, it wasn't like him to just not come home. Since Mayfield, he had always called to at least let Wilson know that he would be out somewhere late.

Wilson refused to panic. He had called House four times already, then texted him twice. The lack of response didn't mean he was dead or drunk in a gutter or scoring drugs from some punk on a street corner. It didn't mean anything was wrong. House's phone may have died, or he'd left it in his office, or he simply couldn't hear it wherever he was. That last scenario inevitably brought a noisy bar to mind, but Wilson banished the notion. House had been good; he was dedicated to staying that way. Wilson would have noticed if that had changed right?

Right?

Wilson rolled onto his back and then kicked savagely at the blankets covering his legs. They puffed and billowed before settling lightly over him again. If he called again, or went out in search of him, House would just mock him for a mother hen and tease him all of the next day. In another half an hour, the risk of sarcastic maiming would be worth it just to quell the bright stabs of concern piercing Wilson's gut on every dozen or so heartbeats. House needed to come home. He needed to be here - that was why Wilson had bought the stupid loft with him in the first place. He needed House to stay near from now on.

About ten minutes later, Wilson finally heard it: cane steps and stumbling…it sounded like two people. God, House had gone out to get drunk, and now the cabby was hauling him inside like a sodden wreck of a sack of potatoes. Wilson groaned as he sat up and dropped his feet to the floor, reaching over to fumble his wallet off the dresser. If he tipped the cab driver really well, that might stave off the eventual blacklisting that House often got subjected too as far as cab companies went. Sadly, Wilson knew this from experience, though he had led himself to believe that this crap was behind them. _Far_ behind.

Keys scraped in the foyer door and Wilson stood up, reaching for his robe, only to freeze in the darkness when he heard a tinkling laugh. This wasn't a drunken homecoming; House had brought home a fair-weather friend of the female persuasion. Wilson grinned in relief before it hit him that House and the woman were stumbling down the hallway shushing each other, and from the sounds of their lumbering progress, they groped each other the whole way.

Wilson slinked back into bed and pulled the covers up, his back to the wall that his bedroom shared with House's. House murmured something downright sultry out in the hallway, and then the girl giggled, her voice low and rich. They were whispering, and House's cautious though playful tone caught Wilson's ear. That was House flirting. That was House – _his_ House – acting like a choice human being for the sole purpose of getting some tail.

"…sure he's not awake," House whispered, and then a wet suction of lips followed, and the girl said something coquettish. Wilson rolled his eyes and hunkered down under the covers to better feign sleep. His door, already cracked open, now swung inward to allow a pale sliver of light into his room. House's shadow in the doorway blocked most of it for a moment, and then he hissed, "Wilson? I'm stealing your hairdryer. Gonna do unspeakable things to it."

The girl fought to quiet her giggles, and House even snuffed at his own well-appreciated wit. Wilson hoped he could tell that he was being played; that girl was staking her claim on the promised sex just as much as House was, and nothing more.

"Wilson! There's a cute little crying kitten on the doorstep. It needs your soft, manicured, moisturized, tender helping hands to – "

The girl smacked House on the arm and Wilson clamped his eyes shut again, unaware of having opened them to begin with. "Don't be mean to kittens."

"I love kittens," House assured her. "Wilson runs cancer studies on them."

"He does not!"

"No, he doesn't. I wouldn't let him hurt a kitten; that's just cruel."

God, Wilson could choke on the sugary fakeness. End the overrated courting ritual and get on with it, already. The angry screech of overtaxed bedsprings was easy to block out; _this_ made him want to throttle House and then toss the invading girl out on her ear. Where the hell did House find her, anyway? An alley? Oh god, Wilson hoped not. He should have thought to establish a no-hooker rule in the new loft. But she didn't sound like a working girl, as if Wilson would know. She sounded like a slightly tipsy, horny older woman (he assumed the age from her mildly deeper voice), who had followed House home from a bar and foisted herself on him. And what kind of man would resist that sort of thing, huh? Certainly not House. The man was insufferable and could barely tolerate physical interaction, but sex was a staple of life; even House knew well enough that he should take whatever he could get, whenever he could get it.

Ugh. But did she _have_ to have such an annoying laugh? It was like sparrows tittering against the inside of Wilson's skull with their beaks and their scrabbling claws...

Things quieted down a little bit after that, and Wilson almost managed to fall back to sleep in spite of what he _knew_ was going on in the room right next door to him. But House was at least considerate enough to keep the noise to a minimum, as was his new fuck buddy. Wilson grudgingly admitted that maybe House really did have some sense of propriety after all, and maybe Wilson should find a way to thank him. Sort of. Because there really was nothing worse than having a well-matched roommate and then having to listen to that roommate have fun in the middle of the night. Hence, why Wilson had not quite appreciated the dorm life in college as much as he might have.

And then Wilson caught a hiss of something from next door, maybe a gasp or a soft moan that just couldn't have been muffled, and then House grunting out a semi-desperate, "There. Yeah, there..."

Wilson felt himself blush, a billow of heat rising in his cheeks that he really didn't want to feel right now. The girl murmured something soft and solicitous, and dusky like dark frosted glass. House guffawed that no, it was fine. Hell; at least House had a newer mattress and frame, and Wilson couldn't hear it creaking. The two of them really were taking pains to be quiet. Of course, Wilson's own rather dirty-minded brain translated the quiet part into gentle, slow sex, and that…he simply did not need to think about that. Slow, gentle, sensuous, fluid sex involving House with all his defenses down, and some trollop he picked up god-knew-where.

That was it. In the morning, Wilson was instituting a no-sex-in-the-loft rule because he already knew that he would never look at House the same way after this. From now on, if either of them scored, they were to take their companion for the evening either to her place, or to a hotel. This was ridiculous. Wilson shouldn't have to lay in his own bed trying not to picture his best friend naked and sweating a dozen feet away from him, within moaning distance. And certainly the reverse was true, because Wilson did intend to eventually date again, and the last thing he needed was a running commentary on his technique from the next room. Or over breakfast in the morning. Or…damn him, anyway. The loft was forever more a sex-free zone. Period.

A deliciously soft, shuddering moan floated through the wall to accost Wilson's ears. It barely sounded like House, but Wilson had no doubt that it came from him. House's erstwhile bedfellow replied with a few hushed words, and House mumbled, "No, keep going-ghih…ohhnhuhhhh…" House purred off into silence again.

Wilson's hair stood on end at the obvious strain he could hear in House's voice, even muffled by the intervening drywall. Delicious, shivery, tensed-to-breaking strain. Wilson folded his hands up in a tight ball against his sternum, then curled around them. The sudden urge to touch himself caught him completely off guard. Not that the sounds next door weren't impetus enough as far as arousing him went, but it only came after that – that _sound_ that House made. That ragged-edged bleat. And while Wilson might have been okay with the idea that a man could be attractive to him, he wasn't quite okay with said man being the one he lived with in a building already half-convinced that the two of them were closeted butt-humpers.

Soft squeaks finally sounded from House's bedroom, and Wilson half-heartedly dragged a pillow over his head. He could picture it, judging by House's scattered comments. The girl was probably riding him at an agonizingly languid pace. Up and down like a knife through butter, back and forth in time with the soft whine of the metal-coiled mattress like a skiff bobbing on a lake without wind. Except that House's next raspy command was, "Harder! Oh god, right there…" and it didn't seem to quite fit in with the mental image that Wilson had formed. That exclamation was followed in short order by a brief scramble next door, as if one of the other of them were suddenly overwhelmed with the urgency of it, and was now searching for purchase against the mattress. And then House started chanting in the lowest of frantic whispers, "Touchmetouchmepleasetouchme…"

Wilson's jaw dropped when he put the whole thing together. That wasn't a woman in there with his roommate and best friend of over fifteen years. That was another man. And the other man was not riding him, either.

"Please, come on, let me – " Sheets rustled suddenly and the mattress protested for moment, and then House whimpered another incoherent plea.

Wilson gaped at the wall separating their bedrooms, listening to the _other man_ try to hush House's babbled begging before he got too loud.

A moment later, House whined quietly, and then outright sobbed, "Please!"

"Soon," the other man cooed, breathless.

Wilson wondered what was going on in there. Surely, House didn't need the other guy's permission to come, unless that scramble he had heard earlier was House reaching for himself only to have the other guy grab his hand to hold him back. A fresh flash of heat coursed through Wilson's torso and legs as he pictured that, quite against his will. House spread open on his back, held down by the wrists while some guy – some _stranger_ – fucked him.

Sweet lord, Wilson thought, his eyes wide in the darkness. How could he have never known that House swung both ways? Of course, the innuendo had always been there, and House harassed the men on his staff just as inappropriately as he did the women, but still; Wilson had thought it was all talk. And then, naturally, Wilson had to go and start mentally cataloguing all of the overtly flirtatious behavior that House directed at _him_ on a daily basis, and holy shit. Wilson didn't want to think about that, not now. Maybe not ever.

The antics next door distracted him enough that he forgot the list he had already started compiling of possible evidence that House was in love, or at lease in lust, with him. The stranger was gasping softly, obviously holding back, probably trying to swallow his tongue to remain silent, but House continued chanting and stammering choked little pleas in between his hitched breaths and the involuntary groans or whimpers, or the soft little high-pitched cries. Both of the men in the other room had to be light-headed, Wilson thought; they covered the urge to cry out by breathing harder and deeper, great shuddering gasps that Wilson could hear through the wall. Wilson tried not to listen too closely, but the truth was, he was rapt, and he had his own hand clamped between his legs just to feel the pressure and elicit a gentle billow of tingling heat by which to appreciate the effect of House's late-night tryst.

Anyone would become aroused listening to two people enjoying a sexual encounter; it didn't matter who or what those people were because at some point late enough in the game, the sounds were all the same anyway. Wilson felt no shame at the way he rubbed himself through his sleep pants with his ears attuned to the smallest gasp from next door, and when House choked over a cry and then had it muffled for him, presumably by the stranger-man's lips, Wilson acknowledged the fact that he was going to have to retire to his en-suite bathroom and take care of himself. Next door, House was making sounds unique to a man coming undone while someone else's tongue was stuck halfway down his throat to stifle him. Nasally moans, louder than anything previous, betrayed just how good that other guy's…um…penis must feel.

Wilson winced at that part, but rapidly glossed over it when House suddenly gasped, tried to speak with his lips crushed against the other guy's, and then emitted a shuddering, irregular, raspy groan. Wilson heard a scrabble of feet – he guessed House's, and pictured him arching back into the bed, trying to find leverage enough to push his hips up. Then the other guy murmured something, and House let out a strangled yip. A few more loud, rough gasps followed, accompanied by the occasional swish of a limb dragging across sweat-dampened sheets. Wilson pictured House twisting and bucking against the other guy, perhaps into the other guy's fist. A few interminable seconds later, things quieted down for good. House chuckled lightly and the other guy agreed with whatever he had just said, his voice once again smooth, thick and honeyed so that Wilson could see where his earlier error concerning gender had stemmed from. Wilson really needed to go to the bathroom now, or else relieve his growing problem right there in bed, but getting up would alert House to his being awake, and Wilson didn't think he could be quiet enough where he was to keep House from realizing that Wilson had listened to the whole thing. So he stayed put and cupped himself through his pants, waiting with an edge of desperation for House to hurry through his afterglow and kick the stranger out. And the guy better be leaving, Wilson thought. No way would he tolerate House having sleepovers in _their_ loft. Just no.

It took perhaps ten minutes for the people next door to stir again, and then Wilson listened to the stranger dressing, whispering back and forth with House with _far_ too much familiarity. Wilson didn't like it; that guy didn't know the first thing about House. Who the hell was he to stand over there and crack stupid jokes and trade barbs with Wilson's friend?

Within twenty minutes, the stranger was indeed gone, and Wilson had visited the bathroom. The clock read two something in the morning, and Wilson settled on his side under the blankets, wide awake and fretting. House's snores filtered through the wall to keep him company, and Wilson allowed himself, for just one moment, to recognize how much he missed just having a warm body next to him in bed. They didn't even have to be touching, but he missed knowing that at least he wasn't sleeping alone. And on the other side of the wall he was staring at, House was sleeping alone too, ensconced in sheets that no doubt smelled of sex and a man he didn't even know, and could probably never actually like. It seemed like such a simple equation, Wilson mused. But it wasn't.

Wilson consoled himself by telling Amber that he missed her, and eventually drifted off to sleep.

* * *

--another bit coming soon.


End file.
